


Knowing Another

by CoffeeJay



Series: Rare Pairs and Requests [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Character Study, Gratuitous use of metaphors, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, they need each other okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 06:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17720156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeJay/pseuds/CoffeeJay
Summary: Francis and Arthur haven't always known how to be around each other, but they've learned.FRUK, as per request from Tumblr!





	Knowing Another

Francis knew that look, just as he knew the rest of every last part of Arthur.  Distant, green eyes, hooded like a forest under a cloud of fog, reflecting the fire Francis had built to keep them warm.

Francis knew he shouldn’t ask.  Arthur was a flower, a rosebud not to be pried open before its time—but Francis knew that Arthur would open up to him in his own time, spilling his secrets in the quiet of their mornings together, whispered in bed, murmured across their dining room table, slurred over a glass of wine, always quiet, never forced.

Francis knew now what he hadn’t known before, that red could not be pried from tender green without tearing the petals loose entirely, without dripping crimson down a scarred stem from scarlet-tipped thorns.

But if Arthur was a rose, Francis was a willow, bending low to sweep others off the uncertain ground with his roots, shedding his own tears for every soul that came to mourn under his branches.  He would give his every leaf to dry another’s tears, shed his every branch to provide crutches for others to lean upon, until there was nothing of him left at all but a husk.

Arthur knew this.  He knew Francis ached to peer into the heart of him just to find the source of his own aching, to stop it up with leaves.  He knew he yearned to pry, but that he learned not to, but instead to nudge, to support, to provide a living arm, not a broken crutch.  After all, roses needed scaffolding, yes, but they also needed shade.

Arthur knew that Francis had always lived with enough room under his branches for everyone he loved, though for the longest time, Arthur had not known there had been a place there for him.  He knew that Francis would tear himself apart just to see Arthur raise his own leaves to the sun, but that had never been what Arthur wanted.

Arthur knew to let himself bloom before he withered, just as Francis knew to be a shade tree before he ripped himself to twigs just to warm another for a night.  They knew these things because they had taught each other.

They didn’t need words—words were for later— but they needed each other.  Francis needed to wrap an arm around Arthur’s waist just as badly as Arthur needed someone to lean on.  Most of all, they needed the sad, tender smiles that they shared, promising one another that they would meet each other somewhere between Francis’ stooping and Arthur’s reaching for the sun, promising that they wouldn’t tear each other apart with thorns and flames.  That had been before.

Now, they knew.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you have a request? I take those.  
> You can reach me in the comment section here, or at hetaliapurgatory.tumblr.com/ask


End file.
